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(No Model.) '4 Sheeta-Sheeh 1' H; SIMON. APPARATUSTOR CLEANING GRAIN AN'B OOLLE-GTING DUST.

No. 537,241. I I Patented Apr. 9, 1895.

WITNESSES: I I i-1M I INV.ENTOYR."

A'I'roRN EYs (No Model.) 48hee'ts-Sheet 2.

, SIMON. APPARATUS FOR CLEANING GRAIN AND COLLECTING DUST.

No". 537,241. Pat e nt ed Apr. 19. 1895.

WITNESS-ES. I I I IILIVENT'ORQ ATTORNEYS.

4 Sheets-Sheet 3.

(No Model.)

. H. SIMON. Y APPARATUS FOR CLEANING GRAIN AND QOLLEGTING DUST.

No. 537,241. Patented Apr. 9, 1395.

' SES. A

A v INVENTOR. 6AM? ATTORN EYS (No Model.) 4 sheets- -sheetv 4.

H. SIMON. APPARATUS FOR CLEANING GRAIN AND COLLECTING DUST.

N0'.537,241. Patented Apr. 9, 1895..

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WITNESSES. 4

' WM INVENTOR.

4 S ATTORNE-Y'S.

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r UNrTED smar Ar-fisher OFFICE,-

HENRY Tsnuou, on .MANCHESTER, ENGLAND,

.A PAnATUsroR CLEANING GRAIN AND COLLECTINTG ou'sf-r.

srncxrrcn'rron forming part of Iletters'PatentNo. 537,241, dated A rils, 1895.

1893, No.18,626, and August-19,'1893,1los.15,769 and 15,770; in France Beptembor 28, 893,110, 283,108; in Belgium September 29,1893, 110,106,583; in Austria-Hungary April 26, 1894,110. 54,276 and No. 8,295, and in Switzerland May 2,

- issanmenoo. a j

- To all whom it may concern:

'gary, dated April'25, 1894,110'. 54,275 and No,

, process, so that they-air may be discharged Be it known that'I, HENRY SIMON, a citizen of England, residing at20 Mount Street, Manchester, inthe county of Lancaster, England, have Invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Cleaning Grain and CollectingDnst, (for which patents have been granted in the following countries: Great Britain, dated October 28, 1892, No. 19,388, July 13, 189mm. 13,626, and August-19,1893, Nos; 15,"? 6.9 and 15,7 7O; France, dated September 28,1893, No. 283,108; Belgium, dated September 29, 1893, No. 106,583; AustriaHuu- 8,295, and Switzerland, dated May 2, 1894, No.

8,400,) of which the fOHQWiHg'lS a specificar' tion. r I Myinvention relates to apparatus'forcleanmg grain, separat ng sound grain in a clean state from small or imperfect grain; foreign seeds, pieces of string, shavings or other impurities, clearing it also from dust, and collecting the dust from the air employedinthe without oifensemr the bulk of the air, may be used repeatedly. For this purpose'l construct a machine as I shall describe, referring to the accompanying drawings, in all of which similar letters are employed to denote the same p s I.

Figure 1 is a plan the upper half being sectional on the lineX X of Fig. 2 which is a longitudinal section on line Z Z of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 on the right side is" a front view and. on the left a half vertical section on line'W'W of Fig.

1. Fig. his a rear elevation, the'right half sectional on the line Y-Y of Fig; 1.

The machine is duplex or consists of twotherefore to be understood that what I amy about to describe, except inrespect of these single parts, applies to both sides of the machine. -1 feed the'grain into one end of a 're- A volving tapering screen A so that while'the grain passes through the holes of the screen,

string, shavings and other matters that cannot Applicationfiled October-80,1893. 'sesainmsasos. (a, model.) Patented inEnglud October as. 1892,1110. 19,888, July 13.

gravity within the screen and delivered atits larger (ipen end. The screen,instead of being tapering may be cylindrical with helicalribs directing the shavingsor' the like to theopen.

end. When the grain trea'tedhas no string,

shavings or the like, the revolving screen may be dispensed with. In either casethe-grain passes on to a suspended sieve Bvwhich is swung in a nearly horizontal plane by a revolving crank 0 having counterbalance c. There may-be two ofwthes'e sieves, the'one above the other, the upper serving to separate the larger impurities, allowing the-grain and smaller impurities to pass through its meshes to the lower sieve. The smaller'grain and foreign seeds pass through the sieve, or the lower of the two sieves, and aredischarged end of the sieve B at E into a hopper E pref:

'erably-provided with a feed roller-anda con-n; terweighted front betweenthe lower edge ofthence at D. The sound grain passes over the which and the roller the grain descends in a shower subject. to a blast of air caused by a fan to pass through the grain as it falls. Shouldthe hopper F be empty or nearly so, the lower edge of its front is pressed by the counterweight against the roller, so that no part of the air current c'an pass through the mes 1 r The aircurrent, caused by a fan about-to be described, descends by a channel Ggpasses 1 around under the casing of a worm or other conveyer H and ascends the channel I. The

air blast passing through the showerof grain clears it fronrlight impurities and dust, and

carries them along with it to a pyramidal settling chamber K, in which some of the impurities and dust is deposited and from which it passes away by a chute'k. The air, still more or less dust laden passes through a circular opening from K into the case of the fan Zand,,by the blades in front of theconical shield L, is caused to revolve rapidly while it passes the edge of L into an annular pocket Mtormed' in the fan casing. In this pocket rod ' channel indicated by the dotted lines m which fan on the channel 1 causes the pressure of "to perform cleaning work again, though this and as the air, mostly cleared of dust, passes to the descending channel G, the dust, accompanied by a small portion of the air, passes to'a dust collector O by a tube N which enters O tangentially. In this dust collector, the dust descends wheefit'fg round, gathers at the bottom and issues at P, while he air separated from it issues at Q.

. The pipe N instead of issuing from onepart of the pocket M, may issue from an annular maybe formed around the pocket M communicating with it at one or more places or all around.

The main body of the air, being freed from dustby the action of the fan is led back bythe channel G to operate again on the grain, some air being drawn in to make up for the small quantity which passes away'witli the dust. This air is preferably drawn in so as to pass through R where the grain is delivered from the conveyer, so as to carry with it. dust which may have descended with the grain into the casing H. In order that the air may thus be drawn in, the descending-channel G is provided with a valve V for throt tling it more or less, so that the suction of the air under the valve V to be'somewhat under that of the external atmosphere.

Obviously instead of the specially arranged hopper F, a chute adapted for delivering a nearly uniform shower of'grain might be employed, and, instead of the worm conveyer in the casing H, an inclined chute might serve to convey away the cleaned grain, but a worm is to be preferred as it keeps the grain in motion-while air is being drawn in, as abovle described. I

Although I have described a grain separator as a complete machine inclufding the screen A, sieve B, hopper F, conveyer H, air channels G and I, pan Z and dust collector 0, it is obvious that thearrangement of the air channels G and I and conveyer H might be used for acting with an air current on grain delivered in a shower from other apparatus; also that the fan and its casing with annular pocket might be employed, with or without the dust collector O, for separating dust from dust laden air derived from grain cleaning apparatus other than that described, or from sources other than the cleaning of grain.- Nor is it essential that the main body of the air discharged by the fan should be returned,

is of advantagein all cases where a large vol-: ume of air is required. The fan might discharge into the open air or elsewhere without offense, as the air discharged from it is almost entirely freed from dust f In my improved apparatus the specifically lighter substances, which I will call dust for the sake of brevity, are separated from thee heavier substances, such as grain, for instance, by the ascending air-current, and such of the dust as is carried by the air-current to the fan is-there concentrated by centrifugal force in a small portion of the air current, which carries the concentrated dust to the dust collector inwhich the dust is separated from this small volume of air and from which this small volume of air is discharged, practically free from dust, while the bulk of the air current, which is also substantially free from dust, is returned from the fan to the point at which the separation of the dust from the heavier substances is efiected. The loss of air by discharge from the dust collector is compensated for by pure external air entering the air circuit through the grain discharge spout, or otherwise. The air entering through the spout picks up any light particles which may still be mingled with the heavy particles and so effects a final separation before the heavy particles are discharged from the niachine, By discharging'a small portion of the circulating volume of air from the dust collector and replenishingthat volume by pure external air the volume of air-circulating in the separator is slowly but constantly renewed and the circulating volume of air is thereby prevented from becoming gradually charged with dust, whereby the separation would become gradually impaired and a practically useful separation would finally become impossible.

Having thus described the nature of my said i'nvention'and the bestmeans I know for carrying the same into practical effect,I claim- 1. The combination with a'separating conduit through which the material to be sepainto which the dust drawn into, the fan case is driven by the action of the fan and with an outlet for the purified air, a dust collector which receives from the separating chamber of the fan case the comparatively small volume of air into which the dust has been concentrated and which separates that dust from the air current on which it is carried, and a return spout through which the purified air is conducted 'from' the air outlet ofthe fan case to the separating chamber, substantially as set forth. y

2. The combinatiomwith a separating conduit through which the material to be separated descends, of afan which draws an air current through said conduit, said fan having its case provided with a separating chamber into which the dust drawn into the fan case is driven by the action of the fan and with an outlet for; the purified air, a dust collector which receives from the se arating chamber of the fan case the compa atively small volumeof air into which the dust has been concentrated and which separates that dust from the air-current on whl'ch it is'carried, a return spout through which the purified air is conducted from the air outlet of the fan case to 'i'ated descends, of a fan which drawsan air the separating chamber and an air inlet through which external air is admitted to the air circuit, Substantially as set forth.

3. The combination, with a separating conduit through which the material to be separated passes, of a fan which draws an air-eur rent through said conduit and which is provided with a chamber into which the dust and some air are driven, a dust collector which receives the dust-laden air from said chamber, a return spout through which the purified air is-returned from the fan to said separating conduit, a valve arranged in said return spent, and an air-inlet arranged in the air-circuit between said valve and the suction orifice of the fan, substantially as set forth.

4. The combination, with a fan case having an air-inlet and an air-outlet on opposite sides and a peripheral dust chamber surrounding the air outlet, of blades arranged to rotate in said case near the air inlet, and a partition arranged between said blades and the air outlet, substantially as set forth.

5. The combiuation,with a fan case having an air inlet and an air outlet on opposite sides and a, peripheral (1 net chamber provided with an exit passage for air and dust, of blades arranged to rotate in said case near the air inlet, a partition arranged between said blades and the air outlet, and a dust collector con nected with the exit passage of the peripheral chamber and receiving the air and dust therefrom, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, this 22 day of September, A. D. 1893.

HENRY SIMON.

Witnesses:-

JOSEPH INGLEBY, ARTHURSTANLEY. 

